Here is a bit of the background.
“
Defense attorney G. Guy Smith has claimed that Covington brought drugs to Smithson’s Tanguy Road home and “is the person who injected the defendant with at least three syringes of methamphetamines in the hours before Jason Shephard died, and is the person who supplied GHB (a known date-rape drug) to … Shephard and the defendant.”
Authorities have alleged Smithson drugged Shephard and then strangled him when Shephard refused his sexual advances. Shephard’s nude body was wrapped in several bed sheets and bound by several belts when it was found in the basement of Smithson’s home Sept. 21 — three days after Smithson said he had dinner with the intern and dropped him off at the hotel where Shephard was staying in Chester County.
Smithson was a manager of a regional office in Edgmont for Daktronics, an electronic sign business based in Brookings, S.D. Shephard, who was a resident of Brookings, was an intern with the company and in the area on business when he was killed.”
http://www.delcotimes.com/articles/2008/10/28/news/doc490689319d514270676892.txt
Ping
Sounds like a hate-crime to me.